


fear toxin (◡‿◡✿)

by happyrobins



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Lots of Crying, Panic Attacks, everything you'd expect from fear toxin, fear toxin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-02
Updated: 2014-05-02
Packaged: 2018-01-21 16:10:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1556321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/happyrobins/pseuds/happyrobins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>six drabbles about batkids crying and screaming and whimpering after being dosed with scarecrow’s fear gas~ (⊙‿⊙✿)</p>
            </blockquote>





	fear toxin (◡‿◡✿)

( _dick_ )

 

It takes a while for them to get back to the cave—it’s difficult for Bruce to drive with Dick clinging to him so tightly. The boy sobs like his world is ending, pleading for his mother and father. Bruce even hears his own name between the gasps and cries.

All this from a single breath of Scarecrow’s fear gas.

The antidote from their prior encounters with Scarecrow hasn’t helped Dick even slightly. It must be a new formula, a stronger one. It might take hours for Bruce to create a modified anti-toxin, and Dick is going to be suffering for every second of it.

Bruce has no choice but to carry Dick out of the car—he just won’t let go, and he may be small but he’s  _strong_. He keeps his face hidden against Bruce’s shoulder and his hands clutching at his dark cape. It takes a while to disentangle his fingers from the fabric once Bruce sets him down on a medical cot. 

Alfred has all the equipment ready, and starts taking a blood test as soon as Bruce can hold Dick still enough. 

“Everything’s going to be all right, lad,” Alfred assures him as he finishes, drawing out the needle slowly. Dick just lets out a choked sob.

Carefully, Bruce takes off Dick’s mask. The boy’s pupils are huge, his eyes unfocused and brimming with tears he can’t control. He hides his face in his hands, clutching so tightly that if he wasn’t wearing gloves his fingernails would be tearing skin. He murmurs, so muffled that they can’t hear what he’s saying, but it sounds like he’s pleading for mercy.

A pained, worried expression pinches Alfred’s face. Bruce knows he’s feeling the same guilt over letting Dick go through this, of watching him in this state. A tranquilizer can save him from this torture by putting him to sleep until the antidote’s prepared, but they’re reluctant to calm him with one without knowing what’s in Crane’s new formula and how the chemicals might react. They might just make things worse.

Leaving Alfred to take care of Dick, Bruce turns towards the computers to get started on the antidote. 

“No!” Dick shouts, panicking, his eyes wide. “Bruce,  _please_! Come back! Don’t leave me alone, I-I can’t—!  _Bruce_ … Please…” he begs piteously.

Even though he wants to, Bruce doesn’t turn back. The anti-toxin is the only way to help Dick.

The boy starts screaming. He screams apologies and warnings and raw, wordless anguish that makes Bruce think— _know_ —that Dick is seeing him die, over and over, or something equally terrible.

Bruce remembers when Dick first came to the manor and had nightmares so terrible he would wake up screaming. He only stopped a couple months ago, not long after becoming Robin.

Those screams were nothing compared to those echoing through the cave now.

Eventually the screams die off into hoarse cries, then into quiet, hiccuping whimpers. When Bruce walks over, Dick is curled up on the cot, clutching his bright yellow cape around him as if for protection. Alfred sits beside the bed, patting the cocooned boy on the back and speaking to him calmly, but all his reassuring words can’t stop Dick from trembling in fear.

When Bruce tugs Dick’s cape aside to inject the antidote into his arm, Dick opens his eyes, red-rimmed from crying. Bruce barely has time to finish the injection before Dick is reaching up to wrap his arms around Bruce’s neck. He quietly sobs something incomprehensible against the man’s shoulder.

Bruce lets Dick hold onto him until the boy’s breathing slows and steadies and his muscles slacken, then gently lays his sleeping ward back down on the cot. Exhausted and drugged, he sleeps peacefully, dreamlessly, for now, but the old nightmares are sure to return after tonight.

 

—

( _jason_ )

 

Jason makes a mistake going with a domino mask instead of a helmet, but he was only planning to make a quick round of the neighbourhood tonight. Keep an eye out on things, talk to whoever’s working the street corners to make sure no one’s giving them a hard time, convince any kids he sees wandering around to head home. They trust him better when they can at least see  _some_  of his face.

He sure wasn’t expecting to tail some suspicious guys a few blocks on a hunch and wind up in Scarecrow’s new hideout. Jason sneaks inside and hears Scarecrow explaining his scheme to his henchman. As soon he’s discovered spying and he’s coughing up the acrid, foul-smelling gas exploding out of the canister thrown his way, he  _knows_  he’s made a mistake. But Scarecrow has made an even worse mistake by spraying the Red Hood with fear gas.

Jason’s reaction to the toxin makes everyone else’s seem tame in comparison. He’s known real fear and real pain, worse than anything the gas could make him dream up. So instead it makes him relive it.

Jason’s fear is echoing maniacal laughter and dull metal and choking on his own blood. Time ticking and the smell of his own skin burning. Unrewarded hope. It’s neon green and acid bubbling in his veins. Bursting up out of water that scalded and froze in equal measure, senseless to anything but the agony.

Dying had hurt more than anything he’d ever imagined. Coming back to life had hurt even more.

Back then he’d beaten anyone misfortunate enough to get in his way. No control over himself, only raw, blinded, enraged  _instinct._  Terror and pain and no mercy, breaking bones and jamming his thumbs into eye sockets. 

This time he has guns.

The henchmen don’t stand a chance, not when Jason’s been driven half-mad by the flood of memories he tries so hard to bury, and pain so fierce and  _real_ it feels like he’s going through that hell all over again. He roars,  _screams_ at the top of his lungs, and even if his aim is sloppy and his grip shaky his training shines through—enemies are dropping like flies around him.

When he comes back to his senses he’ll be horrified with himself. He’s killed before, plenty of scumbags just like these, but never against his will. He’s never been this out of control. He’s  _slaughtering_  them.

The last man is kneeling on the floor, already shot in the knee and begging for his life. All Jason can see is that yellow grin and all he can hear is that awful, awful mocking laughter. He’s all out of bullets but his guns are still metal, still good for hitting. Soon his hands are dripping with blood.

Before he lands the final blow he feels the sharp prick of a dart against his neck, and underneath the surging terror and rage he wants to smile. The empty guns fall from his hands and he lets his numb body follow them to the ground.  _It’s over_ , the rational part of his mind whispers in relief. 

Batman’s shadow drags across the floor, approaching him, and he uses the last of his strength to lift his head from the floor, glancing up at Bruce even as his vision grows dark and fuzzy.

The worst part of it, the part that still makes his hands shake when he thinks about it later, was the  _expression_ he sees on Bruce’s face as the man looks down at him lying on the blood-splattered floor. The disappointment and pity and— and the  _disgust_. The hatred. He knows it was all the fear toxin—he was tripping on that stuff right until he passed out.

He hopes that’s all it was.

 

—

( _tim_ )

 

The crawlspace is a narrow, dim, dusty place, so small that Tim can just squeeze through. When he first discovered the small door at the back of his closet, about a year ago, he only gave it a cursory exploration. This time he pushes through as far as he can, ignoring the nails and splinters and cobwebs, following the tiny passageway until he can’t see the light from the door anymore.

He reaches a dead end and has to stop crawling, so he curls up in the dusty, dry darkness, wedged somewhere deep inside the very walls of the manor, and hopes it’s safe enough. Hopes he can’t be found.

He doesn’t want any of  _them_  to find him. And just the thought of  _them_  makes his mouth dry and his palms sweat and whispered apologies spill from his lips, over and over.

His heart is racing too fast, pounding too hard, and he knows his heart rate is dangerously high and he wants to dig his nails into his arms and rip out his pulse from under his skin just to make it stop.

Quietly as possible, so they can’t hear him, he tries some breathing exercises to calm himself down. It starts working, but then he hears that small door scraping open, far away but still  _too close_ , and a new jolt of terror sends his heart rate spiking.

It’s Bruce. Bruce asking him,  _begging_  him to come out, or even just come closer. But Tim won’t. Won’t fall for that. Can’t deal with another of Bruce’s tests, the ones he always either fails or finds himself horrified to pass. Rather not participate at all. Too scared to see where he’ll measure this time.

He whispers, hoping to appease them. They’re sure to find him now.

_i’m so sorry dad i’m so sorry kon i’m so sorry, i didn’t mean— please don’t— i’m sorry steph, it’s all my fault… i’m sorry i’m sorry i’m sorry—_

“They’re not here, Tim,” Bruce says. “Whatever you might be seeing, it isn’t real. It’s just the toxin. You  _know_  that.” 

Tim hugs his knees tighter and hides his face against them. Bruce’s words mean nothing to his fear-fogged mind.

“Just come out, Tim. I promise everything is going to be okay. Nobody’s going to hurt you. Come out of there and I’ll be able to help you.”

He’s not safe—no matter where he goes, he’ll never be safe. But if he leaves here, he’ll have to go towards Bruce and that means  _Bruce_  won’t be safe either, just by being around Tim. That’s what always happens.

Tim’s given up on trying to control his breathing. He gasps and  _gasps_  and he thinks he’s hyperventilating but he can’t stop. His chest hurts and his head swims. The darkness around him is trying to swallow him up and he can’t fight it. 

“Tim,  _talk to me_ ,” orders Bruce, and he sounds scared. “ _Tim!_ ”

Bruce’s shouts and some loud, wall-rattling crashes are the last things Tim hears, and then—not too long later, he thinks—he’s waking up in a hospital bed in the cave, covered in scrapes and splinters and thick, dark dust.

He’s fine within a day. The hole in the wall takes a bit longer to get fixed up.

 

—

( _steph_ )

 

A part of her knows that something’s wrong. The same niggling part that remembers O said to stay put, to wait for help. Something bad had happened, something really serious, because O’s voice was super stern and she’d repeated herself about a dozen times.

But Stephanie  _can’t_  stay put. She can’t wait for help—by then it’ll be too late.

Instead she runs through the crooked alleyways, her feet pounding against the pavement and her heart pounding like it wants to leap out of her chest. The walls of the buildings seem to be closing in, the path narrowing to trap her. 

She sprints faster and her heart beats faster and she watches the shadows with wide, wary eyes for the enemies she knows are lurking there, watching her right back. They wait for her to get close enough so they can reach out with cold hands and grab her. Drag her into the dark with them.

She’s scared to inhale this toxic city’s toxic air, but she doesn’t have any choice—he’s chasing her, gaining on her every second, and she has to breathe so she can run.   

After a few more winding corners, a few close calls with gleaming eyes in the darkness and nearly being tripped by fingers that rise from the cement and curl around her ankles, she pauses, just for a second, just to catch her breath. She thinks she lost him.

Then she turns and he’s behind her, tall and smirking and terrible. Her heart jackhammers against her ribs. She can’t breathe, the air feels scalding hot.

Steph takes off in the opposite direction, sobbing out loud as she splashes through puddles as dark and warm as blood. She isn’t sure how much longer she can keep this up. But if she stops she’ll… She isn’t  _sure_  actually, what will happen. Her mind is hazy, thoughts and logic pushed aside by fear. It will be bad though, she knows that. She’ll be fired or arrested like she’s a criminal, like she’s her father. She’ll be  _killed_.

She wishes she could talk to Barbara one more time, maybe she’ll know what to do, but all she can hear in her comm is static no matter how much she fumbles at the little device with trembling fingers.

Tears run down her face as she slows down. She can’t… just  _can’t_  run any longer. Her legs are clumsy and her lungs burn and she’s so terrified and dizzy that she feels bile rise in her throat.

Steph isn’t surprised when she’s tackled to the ground. She tries to fight back but her weak, shaking limbs are pinned easily. She’s panting so hard that she can’t even cry out at the sudden, stabbing pain in her arm.

The face looking down at her is gaunt like a skull, but dark as onyx, with a white jaw and empty, emotionless eyes that bore into her.

A clawed hand wraps around her throat and she closes her eyes, waiting for the squeezing and the shredding and the inevitable end.

She holds her breath. Waits.

Keeps waiting.

Opens her eyes.

She blinks and marvels as the skull she sees melts into Batman’s face, the bone turning to flesh and cowl. Bruce has two fingers on her carotid, counting her pulse. He seems to realize when she’s snapped out of the hallucinations.

“The antidote I gave you seems to have nullified the fear toxin, but we need to head to the cave to run further tests,” he tells her. “Much longer and you stood a serious risk of going into cardiac arrest.”

“So I was almost scared to death?” she jokes weakly, sitting up.

“Yes,” he says seriously, without an ounce of humour. She wonders why she even tries. “What were you running from?”

_You._ Stephanie cringes, because she can’t say that. 

“I, uh, don’t really want to talk about it… Or even think about it.” She rubs at her arm, where he injected the anti-toxin. It still stings. “I was just seeing lots of crazy stuff, y’know? I really thought I was gonna die.”

He lets out a  _hrm_ , watching her carefully for a moment. There might be a flicker of concern on his face just then, it’s hard for Steph to tell. His eyes are hidden and she’s still not the best at reading him.

Steph tries her comm to call O, and finds out that it’s been tuned to one of their shared channels. No one seems to be on it now, but… 

She really doesn’t want to know what she might have been crying and raving about on the open line as she ran. Or who was listening.

 

—

( _cass_ )

 

They’ve already started treatment by the time Bruce gets to the cave. He feels guilty for not getting there sooner, even though he knows Alfred can handle it. 

Cass was hit with the fear gas while investigating a building on his orders. That makes this all his fault. He should have gone with her, he should have  _known_  Scarecrow was involved.

The toxin’s been identified as one of Crane’s less common formulas but it’s one they have an antidote for, which is a relief. Cass won’t have to wait while Bruce synthesizes a new one.

She sits and doesn’t flinch or utter a sound as Alfred injects the antidote into her arm. Tim and Stephanie are there with her, too, murmuring reassuring things, but she doesn’t even seem to hear them. Her eyes are wide and round and glassy. Tears are streaming down her face as she stares into empty space.

Whatever she’s seeing, whatever she’s hearing and feeling must be horrifying beyond comprehension. She doesn’t make a sound except for the shuddering breaths through her nose. Her mouth is clamped shut, her jaw tight.

She should be screaming. Screaming or sobbing or whimpering. Those are the most basic symptoms of fear toxin. In no documented case has anyone ever been utterly silent like this, and somehow it’s far more worrying and unnerving than if she were screaming herself hoarse.

Hands grip at the edge of the cot so tightly her knuckles are white. It takes some coaxing and prying, but they manage to get her to let go and lie down on her back. She immediately grabs at the sides of the bedframe again, like she’s terrified the bed will buck and throw her off.

Her eyes stay open, staring in horror at the rocky ceiling of the cave as though it’s hiding all her worst nightmares. The antidote contains a tranquilizer, but it takes a while to kick in. Until then there’s nothing to save or protect her from the awful visions of her own drugged mind. If she’s lucky, she won’t remember any of it when she wakes up. That’s not always the case, though.

Eventually Alfred herds Tim and Stephanie over to some other cots so he can patch up all their little scrapes and cuts, then upstairs to the kitchen for some snacks. It’s better that they don’t stand around crowding Cass and worrying themselves. She’s going to be fine. She’s strong.

Bruce sits with Cass, waiting with her as the antidote takes effect.

It takes a long time for her eyes to close.

 

—

( _damian_ )

 

It takes the three of them—Dick, Bruce, and Alfred—to wrestle Damian onto the medical cot. Damian’s eyes are dark and crazed, his pupils completely blown. He screams like he’s being tortured, like he’s  _dying_.

Tonight he got dosed with enough fear toxin to take down someone  _Bruce’s_  size. And while Damian acts all big and tough, he’s just a kid. A kid with so many hallucinogens coursing through his system it’s a miracle he hasn’t gone into shock.

Blood trickles steadily down Dick’s arm. Damian stabbed him twice in the shoulder with a batarang while he was carrying the screaming boy to the batmobile, and it hurts like hell but he’s not going to let anyone waste time on him until Damian’s stable.

“The restraints,” Bruce says, after Damian lashes out and almost succeeds at kicking his father in the face. He’s struggling too much. Dick and Alfred look at Bruce, distressed at what he’s suggesting. “It’s for his own safety. He’ll hurt himself if he keeps this up. We can’t do anything if he keeps moving.”

They only ever use the restraints in the most extreme cases, when someone’s afflicted with something that makes them lose control of their actions to the point where they’re a danger to themselves and others. It’s awful and upsetting and they  _hate_  doing it.

But they can’t argue with Bruce on this, not while Dick’s still dripping blood on the floor. Damian’s just going to keep fighting them. It’s the only way.

Working together, they manage to grab Damian’s flailing limbs and strap his ankles and wrists into the padded cuffs that attach to the cot. Dick whispers an apology into Damian’s ear that the boy probably doesn’t hear because he starts screaming even louder and struggling harder than before, enraged at being trapped. Tears of frustration and fear run down his face as he yanks at the cuffs desperately.

Bruce has to hold him down with both hands, pushing down on his chest and shoulder, just to keep him still long enough for Alfred to stick him with a needle.

Dick kneels by the bed and strokes Damian’s dark hair comfortingly.

“It’s okay, Damian,” he says as the boy snarls like a trapped cat. “We just gotta get some blood to check what formula they dosed you with. You’ll be back to normal in no time.”

Dick presses his forehead against Damian’s as the second needle goes in. It’s filled with a safe sedative, one they know won’t react badly with any fear toxins. And it’s a much stronger dose than the one Dick tried before he brought Damian to the cave, so hopefully it  _works_  this time.

It takes a few minutes, but eventually Damian stops screaming. Stubborn kid that he is, he stays awake as long as he can, babbling wildly in a rapid mixture of languages, in Arabic and English and others, too. Dick shushes him gently, doing his best to urge Damian to fall asleep.

“Father! _”_  Damian shouts frantically. He whimpers something Dick can’t understand and then he shouts again. “ _Father!”_

Bruce looks over from the computer that’s running the results of Damian’s blood test, frowning in worry. Dick shakes his head at Bruce and continues trying to hush the boy. He can handle this.

“Mama…” Damian sobs. He’s fighting the sedative, but it’s dragging him down more and more each second.

“She’s not here right now, but she’s okay,” Dick tells the boy, remembering his own experiences with fear toxin, how he believed he was losing everyone he ever cared about. The horrible things he saw happening to them. “Everyone’s okay, I promise.”

Damian’s slowly closing eyes seem to focus on Dick for a short moment. “ _Grayson_ …?” His voice is quiet now, barely above a whisper.

“Yeah, I’m right here. And I’m not going to leave you. Just go to sleep, little D. You’ll feel better once you wake up.”


End file.
